As an alternative or add-on to satellite-based positioning systems, positioning systems in which a present position of a terminal is estimated based on a list of communication nodes (such as for instance cellular base stations, access points or beacons) that can presently be heard by the terminal and a database that contains identifiers and positions of the communication nodes and/or models for the coverage areas for a number of communication nodes have gained recent interest.
Given that the communication node positions are known and distances from the terminal to the communication nodes can be estimated, the terminal's position can be estimated through triangulation. Distance between a terminal and the heard communication nodes can be estimated for instance based on either the path loss using a channel model (i.e. how much the signal attenuates between the terminal and the communication node) or based on timing (or round-trip timing) measurements (i.e. information expressing how long signals propagate between terminal and communication node).
Alternatively, if models for the communication node coverage areas are known, then a terminal may pick the coverage areas for the heard communication nodes and find the intersection of these coverage areas. The terminal can then be assigned a position that is, for instance, the center-of-mass of the intersection area. Similarly an error estimate for the position estimate can be given, for example, based on the size of the intersection.
A model for the coverage area of a communication node can for instance be determined by having one or more terminals that are capable of determining their position send reports with their present position and a list of one or more communication nodes that can presently be heard to a server, gathering, for each communication node, the terminal positions reported into a set of terminal positions and deriving, from this set of terminal positions, a model for the coverage area of the communication node.
Furthermore, if the reports further contain information on a distance between terminal and communication node, it is also possible to estimate a position of the communication node based on the set of terminal positions and the associated distances.